AltSchool Raises $100 Million in Funding to Reimagine Education for
U.S. Students and Teachers

SAN FRANCISCO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--AltSchool
kicks off Teacher Appreciation Week with $100 million funding to further
its vision to reinvent U.S. education from the ground up. Founders Fund
and Andreessen Horowitz led the round with Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla
Chan's donor-advised fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation.
Additional investment came from Emerson Collective, First Round Capital,
Learn Capital, John Doerr, Harrison Metal, Jonathan Sackler, Omidyar
Network and Adrian Aoun. This round also includes a new debt facility to
fund school expansion.

“Our children are going to experience an unbelievable amount of change
in their lives, and we need an education system that is preparing them
for the careers and the world they'll find in 2030”

U.S. schools are struggling. Students currently rank thirty-sixth among
industrialized nations in math proficiency, and score at or below
average in science and reading.1 Educators are fleeing the
profession in record numbers. Roughly half a million teachers leave each
year – attrition that costs $2.2 billion annually.2 That’s
more than double the rate from just five years ago. Turnover is highest
among new teachers, with up to 50 percent quitting within five years.
Education reform experts agree: to transform education we must change
the culture around how we support teachers.

AltSchool Wants to Fundamentally Reimagine Education

In 2013, founder Max Ventilla and his team of renowned educators and
technologists started AltSchool by asking, how would school look if we
designed it from scratch today? They evaluated everything – from what
role teachers should play to how technology could complement classrooms.
They discovered that our children can get a completely different
education than most believe is possible.

Today, technology can handle many of the administrative and
organizational tasks that consume teachers’ time. School doesn’t have to
be one-size-fits-all anymore; we can personalize academics for each
student based on their unique learning style, interests and skill level.
Schools can adapt and grow in real time to keep pace with accelerating
changes in the outside world. Finally, teachers can regain their
autonomy in the classroom.

So, AltSchool started building schools, each supported by a proprietary
technology platform that made all this possible. In 2013, there were 20
students in one school. This year, there will be up to 500 students in
eight schools. And soon, AltSchool will offer its model to schools
nationwide, so that each child can access a high-quality education that
will help them reach their full potential.

“From SpaceX to Airbnb to Oscar, today’s strongest entrepreneurs are
creating technology-enabled models to transform some of the oldest and
most established industries in the world. We believe the time has come
to reimagine education,” said Brian Singerman, Founders Fund managing
partner. “The U.S. education system has remained largely unaltered for
decades. AltSchool has the audacious vision and scalable solutions to
accelerate truly transformative change in the education space.”

Since raising $33 million in Series A financing last year, AltSchool has
expanded to four schools in the Bay Area, with additional locations in
San Francisco, Palo Alto and Brooklyn opening this fall. Its staff has
nearly quadrupled, from 30 to 115 employees, one-third of whom are
educators. The new investment will support AltSchool as it opens more
schools in existing and new markets, aggressively hires the best talent
towards its mission, develops new tools and functionality for its
platform and begins to bring its technology to other schools nationwide.

“We started AltSchool because we wanted to change kids’ lives, but it
has become so much bigger,” said Max Ventilla, CEO and founder of
AltSchool. “Our students are coming to love learning – they’re achieving
milestones in a way that they and their parents didn’t imagine possible
in traditional school. We’ve created a culture where teachers feel
empowered and valued and where students and parents feel heard. Now,
thanks to the philosophical and financial support from our investment
partners, many many more educators and families around the country will
be able to experience what education can be in the 21st century with
AltSchool.”

Creating a Central Operating System for Education

AltSchools are small by design and the team takes a growth-centered
approach, continually collecting and iterating on feedback from its
community of teachers, students and parents. Improvements happen in
hours and days, not years. AltSchool’s platform enables teachers to
deliver Personalized Learning Plans, custom-made lesson plans for each
child that combine student interests, parental priorities and specific
tasks educators feel will best challenge and prepare each child to
succeed.

For example, inspired by the current social justice concerns between
African Americans and U.S. police forces, an eight-year-old student
created a study on truth and the San Francisco Police Department,
initiating a series of in-person interviews with the police captain, who
has since become a friend. Last month, middle school students cast new
interpretation on The Iliad, using data management technology to
analyze the 3,000-year-old text. They graphed data visualizations on a
key theme (anger) to develop insights and discovered that friends and
allies "raged at" each other more than enemies.

The AltSchool platform is not limited to academics. It functions as a
central operating system to handle everything from admissions to student
assessment, from parent communication to classroom supply procurement.
In the coming year, AltSchool will start trial programs with select
schools nationwide. By providing its platform in whole or as individual
services, AltSchool aims to help non-AltSchool students and teachers
experience the benefits of adaptive, personalized learning.

“Our children are going to experience an unbelievable amount of change
in their lives, and we need an education system that is preparing them
for the careers and the world they'll find in 2030,” said Lars Dalgaard,
general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “We believe AltSchool's
full-stack approach is the most promising way to bring education into
the 21st century.”

“AltSchool is not only changing the future for students, but for the
teaching profession as well,” said AltSchool teacher, Kate Moriarty. “We
are trusted with the freedom to figure out how to best support our class
and understand each student’s needs. And if something isn’t working and
we have an idea of how to change it, we have a team of engineers ready
to listen and quickly implement solutions based on our feedback. If that
isn’t a dream job for a teacher, I don’t know what is.”

About AltSchool

AltSchool is reimagining K-8 education from the ground up with a mission
to enable all children to reach their full potential. AltSchool’s
world-class team of educators, operators and technologists is building a
network of micro-schools that offer personalized, child-centered
learning experiences. Founded in 2013 by technology entrepreneur and
parent Max Ventilla, and headquartered in San Francisco, AltSchool is
backed by Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Emerson Collective, First
Round Capital, Harrison Metal, John Doerr, Jonathan Sackler, Learn
Capital, Adrian Aoun, Omidyar Network, Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla
Chan's donor advised fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation and
other leading investors. AltSchool currently operates schools in San
Francisco and will be expanding to Brooklyn and Palo Alto in fall 2015.
More information at www.altschool.com.

1 2012 results
from The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)2
According to a recent
report from the Alliance for Excellent Education